Improvement in tools for twisting wire for wire guards



J. MCMURRAY.

Improvement in Tools for Twisting Wire for Wire Guards.

No. 122,903, Paremedran.2e,ra72.

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Elgar@ UNITED STATES PATENT CDEErcE.

JOHN MCMURRAY, OF BROOKLYN, NEW YORK.

IMPROVEMENT IN TOOLS FOR TWISTING WIRE FOR WIRE GUARDS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 122,903, dated January23, 1872; antedated December 30, 1871.

To all who/1n it may concern:

Be it known that I, JOHN MGMURRAY of Brooklyn, in the county of Kingsand State of New York, have invented a new and useful lmprovem ent inthe Manner of Producing Wire Guards from Unannealed Wire 5 and I dohereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exactdescription thereof, which will enable others skilled in the art to makeand use the same, reference being had to the accompanying drawingforming part of this specification, in which- Figure l is a front orface View of a portion of a wire guard constructed accordin g to myinvention. Figs. 2 and 3 are views of a tool used in making the same.

Similar letters of reference indicate like parts.

This invention relates to a new and useful improvement in the method ofmaking wire guards, and it consists in constructing the saine by themeans hereinafter fully shown and described, whereby hard or unannealedwire may be worked into figures and meshes of different combinations,forming a much more durable guard than those heretofore made of annealedor soft wire.

These wire guards are used for summer doors, wire doors, railings forcounting-house desks, bank-counters, &c., &c., and the soft or annealedwire guards are very liable to become bent and disiigured, an objectionwhich is fully obviated by my improvement.

Owing to the rigidity of unannealed wire, this twisting cannot beeffected by hand. The two strands to be twisted must be held in aniniiexible position while the operation is performed. For this purpose Iprefer to use an instrument formed on the principle of a pair of pliers,as shown in Fig. 2. Each jaw is provided with a groove, c, made in itsface to re ceive a strand of wire, the groove in one face being inclinedto that in the opposite jaw, so that the two when closed together forman inverted V. These grooves retain the two strands in a position tocross each other obliquely.

The jaw being closed upon the two wires l lying in the grooves c c, andfirmly held, it is only necessary to revolve the instrument once toproduce a complete twist, and by repeating this operation the number oftimes required to produce the figure or pattern which the guard isdesigned to have, and in succession grasping and turning the next pairof strands, and so on until completed, the work proceeds in the mostregular manner and with uniform results by simply counting the number ofturns given to the instrument. i

Fig. l represents a simple pattern formed by this process, which admitsof almost infinite variations.

It will be seen that the strength of the guards depends not only uponthe rigidity of the hard wire from which it is made, but more from thetwisting of the strands together; and

the greater the proportion of the twists to the.

plain wire the greater the strength of the guard, the size of wire beingthe same. Wire or iron rods of any size may be worked in this manner,the only limitation being the strength ofthe instrument used and poweremployed.

Heretofore unannealed-wire guards have been formed by corrugating orindenting the wire at the intersections or by bending each of twostrands into an angle or semicircle and interlocking them; but when somade the connection is very imperfect and insecure, the meshes do notretain their shape, and, if out or broken, the parts separate.

Having thus described my invention7 what I claim as new, and desire tosecure by Letters Patent, is-

l. The method of forming wire guards of unannealed wire by the twistingtogether at intervals of the strands in pairs to form the figures ormeshes by means of the clamp herein described, as an improvement intheart, substantially as set forth.

2. The clamp or pliers with their faces provided with the V-g'rooves c cfor twisting the pairs of wires at their intersections, as set

